Part Of Your World
by The Last Letter
Summary: For years, the prince has heard stories of the merfolk, living under the sea near his palace. Little does he know, when he goes sailing, there is one who watches him and dreams of life on land. But when the two finally meet, a deal with a sea witch might end up standing in their way forever.
1. I Wanna Be Where The People Are

**It's somebody's birthday! So, we've got a new story! I hope you love it, babe, and you have a great day.**

 **~TLL~**

Jude looked upward to see the waves rolling above him, close enough that he could practically see the sunlight. He flicked his tail behind him and came slightly closer to breaking the surface.

"This isn't a good idea."

He rolled his eyes and looked over his shoulder to see Mariana swimming after him. The water spread her hair out behind her as she raced to catch up with him.

"You don't have to be so worried."

"Actually, I do." With one last flick of her mermaid's tail, she was next to him, her dark eyes burrowing into his. "Jude, you can't want this."

"Can't what? Want to know more about the world other than the one that we're trapped in? I know that Mom won't like it and I know that it's wrong but you aren't my babysitter. You're just supposed to be my sister."

Mariana shook her head at him. "And I'm supposed to _have_ a sister! Why would you care about the human world _now_? Mom told us it was dangerous and we didn't listen and we were up there anyway and now … Now, Callie's gone. The humans killed her, just like Mom said that they would!"

Jude looked away from her, down toward the bottom of the ocean. They were so close to the surface that he couldn't even see the far away sand that was down there. He was of the merfolk – the depths were supposed to be their home. Yet, all of his life, he and siblings had been fascinated with the boats that had passed overhead, carrying _humans_. These creatures that were so like them but so different at the same time, these creatures that weren't allowed to know that they existed, because their mother had warned them that things would go terribly again, as they had in the past, if humans were reminded of merfolk existence. And it had been more than a warning. Their mother wasn't just any mother – she was the queen of Atlantica and, as the royal children, they were expected to take heed, though the only one of them that ever had was their queen's first son, Brandon. The rest of them had been adopted – Callie and Jude had been found abandoned on the palace steps and Mariana had been rescued from the sea witch's cave, her parents having made a bargain that they couldn't fulfill, giving up her to the sea witch's custody and resulting in her brother being cursed.

"What about Jesus?" Jude asked, trying not to think of Callie and trying to get Mariana to come along with him. "Are you really not going to see him again?"

"Don't make this about him," Mariana snapped. "This isn't about him. This is about you and your obsessions."

"It's not an obsession," Jude said, slowly starting to move. She grabbed onto his hand. "You know that. We've talked about it. Callie's yelled at me for it. I know this is my family. I love you but I've never felt right down here and something about feeling the wind on my face and feeling my hair dry and direct sunlight on my skin … Something about the feels right to me! I can't give up that feeling."

"Mom's going to kill you. Don't let her hear that."

"I know." It was the one thing that he had never been able to confide in Queen Stef about. She had raised him from the time that he was a child, she was everything to him, and, yet, he knew that this was the one thing that she would never be able to understand or accept. The world of humans was one that was off-limits to any merfolk and he had never been allowed to forget it. "Come with me."

Mariana glanced upward.

"I'm going with or without you."

With a few flicks of his long blue tail, Jude broke the surface. He took a deep breath, feeling the air fill his lungs. It was such a different feeling than the way breathing underwater felt and something about this made him feel much more satisfied. He let his arms float along the surface, looking around him. On the horizon, he could see the barest hint of land that held human civilization. There were craggy cliffs towering above him but there had never been people that lived there. He had never let himself get too close, though he had desperately wanted to at times. He had wanted to see it and see how real human cities worked. But he had always kept himself in the wide, open waters of the ocean where only ships crossed. Mostly, it was because Callie had never let him go alone. And, now that she was gone, Mariana was behind him, still making sure that he wasn't alone.

He let his arms float to the surface, the sun just starting to dry off the fine hairs on his arms before the water lapped over him. He took another deep breath, bobbing along the tops of the waves. He swam with his head above the water, heading out to the sharp rocks that many a ship had run ins with before. On one of the rocks perched a seagull. Jude could see the bird playing with something, the sun glittering off of it. Jude wanted to call out to him but he couldn't risk someone else hearing the sound. Whether it was a ship that he hadn't noticed or a dumb adventurer on the cliffs above him, Jude knew that he couldn't draw anymore attention to himself than he needed to. Otherwise, his mother would have his tail.

Besides, it was always more fun to sneak up on him and then let out a call of, "Jesus!"

With a predictable squawk, the bird rolled off the rock and splashed into the water. Mariana picked him up in her arms and placed him firmly back on the rock, pulling herself up on the boulder.

"Watch yourself, Jesus."

Jesus opened his wings and shook out his feathers, spraying water droplets all over Jude.

"One more time and I swear –"

"Swear what?" Jude asked. "Gonna swim down and catch me?"

"I used to swim," Jesus said mournfully, dipping one webbed foot in the water. "I used to be you."

"I know."

Jude had never known Jesus before the curse had turned him into a seagull. He had met him as a bird, the one time that Stef had authorized merfolk to go to the surface to track down the young animal. They had found him and settled him on the rock that he now lived on. Stef had used her trident to make his rock a protected place, one that no one could harm him on, and, so, he rarely left. He flew to the top of the cliffs to get food and then he was back down. Jude didn't understand his decision to stay grounded. If he had the ability to see more and do more, he would.

"I was better looking, though. Look at you. You have the face of a twelve-year old."

"You've been saying that since I was thirteen," Jude snorted. "I'm sixteen. Find a new insult."

"Bird brain doesn't have it in him."

"I will push you off this rock."

"Jesus, you're, like, ten inches tall. There's no way you're getting me off this rock!"

The way they argued reminded Jude of Callie and the way that they used to talk to one another. It was too hard to listen to and he found himself scanning over the horizon. It was then that he saw it: a ship. He could see a ship!

"I'll be back."

"Jude –"

Jude dove back beneath the waves, knowing that he could move faster when he was under the water. He came up on the ship and he carefully poked his head above the water. It was broad daylight, much more of a risk of being seen, and it still didn't stop him. There were sailors up on deck. Jude grabbed onto one of the ropes that was trailing in the water, letting the ship pull him through the waves. He looked up again as he heard a woman's loud voice shout, "Prince!"

A sandy-haired man laughed, leaning back on side of the ship so that Jude could only see the back of his head, his hair swaying in the winds. "Lena, you are the reason that sailors always said women were bad luck on ships."

"I'm not going to watch you do something foolish and die."

"I'm the prince. I can't be wrapped in cotton. I have to sail, I have to lead. Come on, let go a little. I'm not a child anymore, you're not a nanny."

"I am here to look out for you."

"And nag me."

The woman finally came into view – a pretty woman, with dark curls and dark skin, a shawl over her head to protect herself from the bright sun.

Jude just stared up at them. He didn't need to see the man's face. He didn't need to see either of their faces. He knew these two. The prince's ship often crossed through. The prince liked to sail and he often took a route around the cliffs and Jude would be lying if he said he hadn't often waited for this particular ship. He was fascinated with the idea of a human who loved the water. He wondered how he saw the world that Jude called his home. He wondered what the prince, whose name was Connor as he had often heard Lena shout, would think of the fish that humans never saw and of Atlantica. He wondered about the prince as much as he wondered about the rest of the human world combined. He wanted to be able to talk to someone about the human world who wanted to talk to him about his world. He wanted the give and the take and he just wanted to talk to a human.

The prince always seemed so curious about the water. Jude didn't think that he would hurt him before being a merfolk. He didn't seem like the type of human that Stef was always warning them to be aware of and to avoid. If only Jude ever saw him alone. He was a prince, and, so, it seemed, he never was. Jude was the youngest of Stef's children but he was still a prince of Atlantica. Yet, he didn't have the kind of bodyguards and people around him that Connor always did. It made him wonder if there _was_ more badness in the human world, if there was more that a human prince needed to be protected from. He wanted the opportunity to ask. The same as he wanted the opportunity to ask about the bright lights that humans sometimes shot up into the sky in their arrays of colour, the same as he wanted to ask about the clothing they wore, and the way that he wanted to know what a human house looked like, compared to the palace in Atlantica.

He wanted to know.

"Lena, will you tell me the story? The one my mother liked?"

"About the merfolk."

Jude gripped the rope tighter and risked pulling himself up a little higher, risking it so that he could grip every word. The humans _had_ known about them once upon a time, it was why Stef was so adamant that they stay out of the way, now. If humans saw them again, they would be that much more fascinated. He knew that. It was why Callie had died. They had seen the flick of her tail, and had shouted that they had seen one, throwing spears. One had caught her and he and Mariana had taken her in the arms and gotten her home, but even the queen's magic wasn't enough to save her from the human's weapons.

"Yes."

"You know that story, Prince Connor, probably better than I do."

"Probably," Connor agreed with a laugh. "She loved that story. She really believed she saw one, once. She said that she had a dark green tail and long blonde hair, was wearing almost nothing and was sunning herself, on the rocks, just over there. She said that as soon as the mermaid realized she was being looked at, she disappeared. Right below the water."

"She was just a child, then," Lena said. "Sixteen, on the ship over to be married to your father. She probably hadn't slept the whole journey. You know how she hated boats. And the water."

"And yet, she talked a lot of mermaids." Connor laughed and Jude smiled at the sound, leaning his head against the sun-warmed wood of the ship. "I don't think she was crazy. I think that she was right. There's got to be something out there that we don't know."

"You believe there's _people_ under the water?"

"Not people, Lena, merfolk. I think that we could find them, if only we could swim deep enough. Do you think they're curious about us too? Do you think I might ever see one? Do you think they're more fish or more human?"

Jude laughed under his breath.

"Come on, Prince Connor. We're almost home. It's time to think of more practical things."

 _Almost home?_ Jude lifted his head from the side of the ship and looked around him. They were too close to the human world! What if there had been another ship? What if someone had seen him? Stef's warnings filled his head and, for a moment, fear filled his heart. Jude threw himself from the netting, hitting the water with the smallest flash that he could manage. Under the water, he turned to look up and he saw that the prince was staring downward. Had he heard? Might he have known? He wondered if the prince could see him now. But, then, Connor turned away and Jude knew that the prince couldn't have brought himself to look away if he really had been spotted.

Jude dove deeper, just to be sure he was out of sight, and then headed back to Mariana and Jesus.

 **Like the last time we did a Disney spin-off, this story will only be updating once a month! I hope you enjoy.**

 **On tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about** _ **Part Of Your World**_ **, add backslash tagged backslash part dash of dash your dash world. Note that the punctuation is spelled out due to fanfiction's restrictions. If you have any problems accessing the extra content on tumblr please send me a message and I can help you out!**

 **I don't own anything recognizable – that being either** _ **The**_ _ **Fosters**_ **characters or anything affiliated with Disney.**

 **~TLL~**


	2. Up Where They Walk

It was the middle of the night and he was supposed to be asleep. Instead, Jude was out of the palace and skimming along the bottom of the dark sea. Days had passed since his last excursion to the surface and he was starting to feel restless. Stef had been keeping a closer eye on him and Jude was thinking that she suspected that he had done something but couldn't prove it. Knowing that she was in asleep, Jude was taking advantage of his free time. There was an old shipwreck that he had been slowly working his way through. The ocean was starting to shift it and Jude knew that he was running out of time to go through it and find human artifacts and he always wanted to find things, try and figure out what they were used for. It was always the most entertaining part of his day.

He could see the ship up ahead and he went through the broken bow, bypassing the parts that he had already swum through. He reached a new room, moving carefully. He had good underwater vision, even in the dark, but it was not as good as it could have been. If he got hurt, if he was bruised or cut, Stef would notice and she would ask. He wasn't clumsy. She wasn't stupid. She would know.

He leant down and then he heard a noise behind him.

"Someone is where he wouldn't be. Why do you think he's here?"

"I don't know. Why do you think he's here? Should we ask him why he's here?"

"Oh, he hears us. He might just tell him."

Jude turned to see two long eels, twined close together, staring at him through the doorway he had just came through. His started to feel cold. So cold. Eels were the preferred sidekicks to witches, particularly, the powerful witch family, the matriarch of whom had been the ones to curse Jesus. Her eels were male but the two in front of him were female and he didn't know who they belonged to.

"Why are you here?" Jude asked them.

"Merman –"

"Man? He looks like a boy."

The eels came closer, looking him up and down.

"Mer _boy_ , why are you here?"

"That's none of your business. What do you want with me?" Jude demanded.

"We see you. We've noticed you."

"Our mistress has noticed you. You like humans. Human things."

"She could make you human."

"I don't do deals with witches. Get away from me! My mother –"

" – would love to hear about why you're in a human shipwreck in the middle of the night." The two eels exchanged a knowing look. "We won't tell if you don't. But just know that you have options. You can have what you want."

"What I want is to not be followed around."

"Well, you know where to find us, don't you?"

Everyone knew where the sea witches lived, in a deep, dark corner of the sea, as far from Atlantica as they could get without infringing on someone else's territory, a current swirling in the ocean above the cave, protecting it from unwanted visitors.

"I won't need you."

"You will."

"Leave!" Jude shouted.

"Why don't you leave? You're trespassing … A prince out of Atlantica? Anything could get you here."

"I'm not that far out of the city. You'd be found out immediately."

The two eels looked at one another. "Oh, we're not doing anything … Not until you want it done. You know, sea witches can do extraordinary things. Sea witches can give you your heart's desire."

"You don't know what's in my heart," Jude said scornfully. "Besides, death is death."

"Yes, true, life is for the living," the eels agreed. "But, when it comes to your life, we know what you want for it."

"You don't know me."

"We know you want to fit in more than anything. We know that you need more than what's under the sea."

"You don't know me and I am leaving."

Jude hated to leave the ship behind but he pulled himself through one of the broken portholes and swam back toward the city. He felt completely unsatisfied and there was no reason to. He had been disobeying his mother's orders but that wasn't something new or unusual. He felt guilt every time _she_ mentioned it, but he, Mariana, and Callie had been sneaking around for so long that it didn't even feel like sneaking anymore. It was second nature to know when to leave and when to go home by the changing of the guard. He knew what times Stef slept best and he knew what times she would be restless. This was the life that he knew. And, yet, he had always knew that he was dreaming of more. And he wasn't thinking of other cities. He wasn't thinking of just branching out from Atlantica and exploring the other parts of the ocean. He was a prince in his own right – he had travelled, had swam the seven seas, had even braved Arctic waters. It wasn't the ocean that he wanted. It was land. It was always land. It was laying on the beach in broad daylight, it was knowing what _toes_ were like, it was breathing in air. He wanted to hear stories about people, the way that the prince heard about merfolk.

Jude looked up. He had more than enough time left. He had left his room with intentions to explore the remainder of the ship for hours. He still had that time. Jude swam upward, his tail pushing him until he broke through the surface. It was so different during the night than it was during the day. Everything felt calmer at night and the cooler air helped Jude feel more _alive_. His heart felt more real in his chest. _This_ was when he felt at his best. It was also when he felt most at peace, with real stars above him and the breeze.

Jude spun in the water when an explosion went on above him. Jude grinned wildly as he saw the pretty colours split the sky. He didn't know how humans did it but he loved the light explosions in the sky. They never seemed to hurt anyone – not like the explosions that came off the ships. He swam with his head above water to the source of the lights. He would recognize that ship anywhere: it was the prince's ship. There was lively music coming off the ship and Jude could see many figures, dancing and talking. It was dark and, so, Jude wasn't as nearly as concerned when he grabbed onto the rigging on the side of the ship, pulling himself up onto it so that he could overhear the conversations.

"Oh, it's the cake!"

A lively chorus of people exclaiming " _Happy birthday!"_ filled the night. Jude took a peek onto the floor of the ship, through a small opening. He saw the shoes of many people, standing still, clapping along and, if he tilted his head, he saw Prince Connor, Lena at his side. Another explosion went off in the sky and Jude delighted in it all again. The way that humans celebrated _birthdays_ was so different from the way that the merfolk did and Jude wanted to know all of it. He looked to the water, watching the way that the colours splashed across the waves. They were sailing further away from land, getting closer to over Atlantica. He thought of his mother, asleep in her bed, and he thought of what she would think of him now. Or of the eels that had approached him earlier.

He heard a sound above him and he hugged closer to the rigging, looking up. There was Prince Connor, one leg slung over the side of the boat as he looked upward, staring at the colourful explosions as Jude stared at him.

"I love fireworks, Lena."

"I suppose that's why you set them off every chance you get."

 _Fireworks._ The colourful explosions were called _fireworks_. Jude mouthed the new word happily to himself.

"Yes, that would be why," Connor said and he laughed.

Jude couldn't help but smile at the sound of his laugh. He swung his tail a little as the prince called for another set to go off. The explosion split the night and Jude looked upward in as much awe as the prince did. For something with such a violent sound, they were so beautiful. It was times like this that Jude was absolutely convinced that his mother was wrong. A world that could create something so beautiful wasn't one that was entirely evil.

Jude was distracted when there was a scream from the deck. He pulled himself up a little to look and he sucked in a harsh breath. The deck was on fire! The deck was on fire! Instinctually, Jude threw himself into the depths of the water, knowing that the burning would never reach him here. But, it wasn't enough to dive down, to find the shimmers of Atlantica and go to sleep like he had never left his bed. There were people up there, people who might be in trouble and might be hurt. Jude didn't possess magic, like the queen did, but he knew that there was something more that he could do. He could get through the water, he could save people. He forced himself upward, keeping his head as close to the top of the water as he possibly could. He didn't want anyone to think that he was someone missing from the boat.

The surface was all chaos. There was fire, crackling explosions from the fireworks that the men had yet to set off, shouting from people in rowboats. He recognized the one panicked voice of Lena, calling out for the prince. It was then that Jude recognized the worry on the faces of the men in the boats: they weren't concerned about their sinking ship as much as they were concerned about the prince, being trapped. Jude let himself go down deep beneath the waves again. He swum beneath the wreckage of the ship, looking for something, any sign of the man that Jude had been watching for so long. The ship was slowly starting to sink and Jude dived lower and lower, trying to get beneath the wreckage.

And, there, was Connor, his leg trapped between two pieces of wood. Jude swam quickly, following the length of the debris, moving carefully so that his fin didn't get caught in anything. Connor's eyes were half-open but he was so utterly still that it left Jude terrified. He couldn't already be dead, could he? Humans couldn't survive long submerged – he knew that; he wasn't stupid – but he just couldn't believe that the prince had been underwater long enough to hurt him. Jude forced apart the wood, finding the knot that had gotten caught around Connor's foot. He freed the man and then grabbed him around the waist. He swam as hard as he could toward the surface. He had never been so grateful to get his head above water, juggling Connor so that he could get the prince's head above water too. It was hard to balance swimming and carrying someone else. Jude had never done it and it was so important to keep Connor so that he could get air into his lungs. Jude struggled toward the beach, not knowing if Connor was breathing or not. He could feel the sand scraping along the end of his tail and Jude knew that he was close. He was so close. And, then, Jude felt his hand touch sand. He gripped it tightly and pulled he and Connor up the beach. Finally, Jude was able to let him go, the waves still lapping noisily over the toes of Connor's boots. It was the first time that Jude had ever been on real land and he couldn't even take the time to enjoy it.

Instead, he leant over Connor, his hands hovering over the prince's chest. He had no way to tell whether a human was dead or alive and his stomach tied into knots.

"Please," Jude begged, shaking him. "Wake up! Wake up!"

But, he didn't.

 **On tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about** _ **Part Of Your World**_ **, add backslash tagged backslash part dash of dash your dash world. Note that the punctuation is spelled out due to fanfiction's restrictions. If you have any problems accessing the extra content on tumblr please send me a message and I can help you out!**

 **I don't own anything recognizable – that being either** _ **The**_ _ **Fosters**_ **characters or anything affiliated with Disney.**

 **~TLL~**


	3. Isn't It Neat

Jude tapped at Connor's cheeks. Did humans hurt the same way that the merfolk did? He had no idea. He had absolutely no idea about humans.

"Come on. Come on!"

There was no way that he could be sitting on the beach with a dead body! He tried not to freak out as he shook Connor, pressing at his wet shirt and nudging at his legs, trying to figure it out. He was shaken out of his thoughts by a strange sound and his heart leapt. He couldn't be discovered on the beach!

"Jude! What are you doing!?"

"Jesus! Jesus, do you know if he's alive?"

He wasn't sure what the bird could possibly know but Jude needed another opinion. The seagull dropped to the surface of the beach and pecked at Connor's forehead.

"Well, I hate to say it –"

"He's breathing!" Jude exclaimed. "Right!? His chest? He's breathing!"

It was the same way that his chest moved, when he was above the surface, and they looked the same from the waist up. Jude's hand touched the prince's leg, thinking about how _those_ would work. Jesus hopped up on Prince Connor's chest, staring down at his face.

"Well, he seems alive to me."

"Get off of him," Jude said. "You aren't helping."

"Why are you helping?" Jesus asked.

"What? Was I going to let him die?"

Jesus hopped around Connor's head. "No but … What's going to happen to you when Stef finds out what you've done?"

Jude barely spared a thought about it. He leant over Connor, staring curiously at him, trying to compare him to the merfolk that he knew. It was the closest that he had ever been to a human and he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything. He touched Connor's face and it was so different to feel dry skin under his fingertips.

"Do you think he's going to wake up soon?" Jude asked Jesus. "What do you think humans dream about?"

"I dream of merfolk stuff," Jesus offered.

"Yeah but that's probably because you're not really a bird."

"I'm a bird now. I'll probably die a bird. How long do birds live anyway?"

"You're not a bird," Jude repeated, though it was the only way he'd ever known Jesus. "Look, look at his eyes!"

"Don't get seen!"

"Don't be a talking bird!"

Jesus fluffed his feathers; like Mariana, he wasn't one who liked being told what to do. He let out a loud squawk characteristic of a bird, and then he took off. Jude usually liked Jesus, but, this time, he wasn't sad to see him go. He looked nervously around, to make sure that Jesus was gone and he was really alone. Then, he leant even closer to Connor. He knew he should leave; he knew that Connor was waking up. Jude wasn't stupid. He knew what he was risking. But it was one man. It was one man who Jude had watched grow up from his ship, one man who often spoke of mermaids, and who looked at the sea with curiousity and respect. Part of him knew it was a bad idea and that his mother would kill him for it, but the other part of him absolutely _had_ to know. It was one man and who was going to believe him if he turned out to be different than Jude expected. But Jude had to know if Prince Connor was as curious and good as he seemed.

"Hello," Jude said. "Hello? Are you okay?"

The man turned over, coughing violently into the sand. Jude reached out a hand to help him and then he heard a voice, one that he recognized.

"Connor! Prince Connor!"

It was Lena. Jude could see her coming down the beach, sailors in her wake.

"He's alive! Connor!"

And Jude knew that he had missed his chance.

He threw himself backward into the waves, letting the water catch him and pull him under. He pushed himself into the rocks surrounding the beach and then peeked above him, keeping an eye on Lena. They weren't close enough to have seen him, were they? He hunkered down even more, watching the prince sit up. His head turned toward the ocean and Jude's heart thumped double time inside of his chest. Connor was looking for him!

Then, Lena had her arm around him, helping him up off the sand. Jude watched to make sure that he was moving all right and he was satisfied that he'd saved his life. He watched the party make their way back up the beach but Connor paused again, looking over his shoulder and in Jude's direction. Jude couldn't help but push himself up. He wasn't sure if he wanted the prince to see him or if he wanted to see the prince. Jude wasn't seen, though, and Connor turned into Lena. Jude watched them until they were gone and then he looked up at the sky, the sun's rays starting to touch the ocean.

If he was lucky, _very lucky_ , he would get home before his mother was out of bed.

(-.-)

"Where _have_ you been?!"

So, Jude wasn't lucky. He was seated at his mother's vanity seat, watching his tail fins float in the water. Stef was floating with her arms crossed tightly over her chest – she hadn't moved at all – but Jude didn't have it in him to look at her anymore. She valued truth above all else, and it helped her to be the fair and just ruler that she was. But Jude knew that she had an inking about where he'd been and she just wanted to hear him say it. The problem was that Jude didn't _want_ to say it. He didn't want to tell her how he felt when he breathed in real air. He didn't want to tell her how the sand felt against his palms. He didn't want to tell her how he had felt touching the human prince's face, making sure that he was all right.

He didn't want to tell her because he wasn't sure that she would understand.

"I'm waiting," she said.

"I stayed out late. I'm sixteen! I'm allowed to do that!"

"You are a Prince of Atlantica! You don't get to run around! And, more than that, you are _my son_ and _you_ are not allowed to stay out until after sunrise doing God knows what! Do you know what's out there? Predators and sea-witches. Jude! Did you even think of the sea witches?! You know that no one in this family is safe from them! You've met Jesus!"

"I know. I just –"

"And _humans_ ," Stef continued. "How could you be so disrespectful to her memory? Anything could have happened to you!"

"Leave Callie out of it!" Jude cried, springing up. "Nothing happened to me! _Nothing!_ I am fine! I am allowed to have something all my own."

"Not under this roof you're not. I'm not having something happen to another one of my children, do you understand me?"

"Do you understand me?" Jude shouted. "Do you? Because everything that you seem to hate is everything that I love! I love seeing Jesus, I love _clouds_ , I love watching ships go by and seeing people happy on the decks! There is so much out there that you want me to miss! Do you even know what a _fork_ is?"

"I know what a fork is," she said coldly. "And you're going to end up dead if you keep chasing fairy tales. You're merfolk, Jude! You are not a human! You have no use for them or their things and so help me, if you leave this palace _once_ in the next month, I will seal you into your room myself and you will _never_ see daylight again, do you understand me?"

"You can't do that to me!" Jude shouted, and he backed away from her, just encased she brandished the large trident that she always carried. She had the ability to do it to him; she could almost do anything. It was why it was so devastating that she had never been able to heal Jesus. "What have I done?"

"You have broken every single rule that this castle has, with no regard to what could happen to you, to this family, or the entirety of the people! _Our people_! If humans had found you, if you had been captured, they would have been crawling the seven seas, searching for all of us, and the humans wouldn't have stopped until we were all dead! You could have killed all of us!"

"You are overexaggerating!"

"They killed Callie! This isn't an over exaggeration! We have died from the humans before! They are a brutal species, Jude, I don't know how many times I have to tell you about that."

"You aren't seeing the whole thing! There are good humans and bad humans and I –"

"Do you _know_ any humans? Have any of them seen _you_?"

Jude lost his grip on his anger for half of a second and he knew his face gave him away.

"They have! You do! Your room, now."

"Mom –"

"Room. Do not argue. Do not leave until I come get you."

"Mom!"

"NOW!"

Jude fled his mother's room but he didn't go to his own. He went straight out of the palace, heading toward the currents. If his mother wouldn't help him, if his mother wouldn't understand, than he knew who would help him. He knew who would understand.

He was close to the sea-witches' cave when the eels that he had more before approached him.

"Well, well."

"The merboy is back."

"I know you know why I'm here," Jude said. "Just take me in."

"Take you in to see the sea witch?" the two eels mused. "The youngest Prince of Atlantica?"

"I know what I'm asking," Jude said, his fingers curling into his palms so tightly that Jude could feel his fingernails digging into his skin but he didn't care. He wasn't _just_ the Prince of Atlantica. If he and Callie hadn't been left on the palace steps or if Stef had been a little less benevolent, he might not have ever been a Prince at all. It shouldn't have been his life and Jude would never understand why it was.

Maybe that was why Stef didn't understand him. The woman he had called his mother for so long hadn't actually given birth to him and maybe that had caused so much disconnect that she would never understand him and Jude just needed to be understood. At this point, it didn't matter by who.

"Well, right this way," the eels said, voice twining together. "Our royal family will be so glad to see you."

Jude followed the two of them into the cage, looking around nervously, but there was no one but the two of them. There was nothing but the dark walls of the cave, lit only by a glowing slime that barely exuded any light. There were crags coming down from the ceiling, pointed rock rising from the floor. He had to move carefully, which was easier said than done since he could hardly see anything. Before they reached the witch's door, there was a room, a small floor full of dead, brown weeds, but they opened their eyes as they passed, and a horrible feeling filled Jude. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know what those things were but, deep down, he had a suspicion.

Because of that, he looked away quickly. He had only the vaguest knowledge of what the sea witches could actually do. All he knew was that they were fearsome and powerful, that they trifled in the dark arts and never had any qualms about fulfilling the wishes of those who wanted to follow them to the dark places. All merfolk were always warned to stay away and Jude knew this was the last place that Stef would ever want him to be. Which was probably exactly why he was here.

"Well, here we are," the eels said. "Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," Jude said, hoping that he sounded more confident than he was.

"Mistress!" One eel knocked while the other spoke. "You have a guest."

"Enter!" called the sultry tones of the sea witch and the door creaked open.

Not overthinking it, Jude swam inside, sealing his fate.

 **On tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about** _ **Part Of Your World**_ **, add backslash tagged backslash part dash of dash your dash world. Note that the punctuation is spelled out due to fanfiction's restrictions. If you have any problems accessing the extra content on tumblr please send me a message and I can help you out!**

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